A Handy Guide to Addressing Sexism within the Ranks

#27 Stop using gendered insults.

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What do the words “twat” and “dick” have in common? They are both gendered insults–words used to insult another person by referring specifically to genitalia (usually via a slang word), and which also includes the word “bitch.”* Gendered insults are so prevalent in the culture that they have been completely normalized and people often don’t even notice when they are using them, but “being completely normalized” is not equivalent to “unsexist,” and if you’re trying to create an environment within the skeptical community that is more welcoming to women (for the purpose of getting more women actively involved in skepticism), then you are going to have to break the habit.

*”Douche” is gendered and an insult, but it’s offensiveness to women is controversial. Some people claim that it implies vaginas are stinky and it is insulting because it makes the vagina’s natural state seem bad; some people claim that it’s a proven scam and thus it’s insulting because of its scamminess and thus isn’t gendered. I am in the camp that it’s a gendered insult and thus a no-no, but it’s not a hill I’d die on, and I can’t believe I’ve actually written this many sentences about it. And by this many sentences I mean three.

Explaining why gendered insults is sexist is confusing to a lot of people, partly because issues of politeness and decorum get mixed up in it. There are many different slang terms for genitalia which run the gamut from raunchy to euphemistic, and the usage of some of those terms is completely unremarkable and the usage of others is considered the worst word ever. Furthermore, what is considered unacceptable among one group of people might be considered positively literary among another, and there are no hard and fast rules regarding individual words. What I’m going to do is break down the three issues regarding gendered insults that cause the most confusing first, and then explain why you should stop using them if you want to be welcoming to women after.

It’s not about being prudish.

You could be in a biology class discussing the reproductive system, and pull out the C-word to answer a question about female anatomical structure. Is that sexist? No. It’s unprofessional (because you aren’t calling things in a science class by their scientific names) and it might get you in trouble with your teacher (depending on school rules and the teacher’s tolerance for vulgarity and/or why you decided on that particular word choice), but it is not sexism. Saying “cunt” when you are actually talking about female genitalia does not create an environment that is hostile to women. It creates an environment that is hostile to people who don’t like vulgarity. I’m not going to say that sexism might not be behind why some person chooses that word over others, but it’s not sexism.

It’s not about being a hypocrite.

Gendered insults are insulting. Period. It doesn’t matter if you are throwing around words like “pussy” and “twat” or “dick” and “prick”–an insult is an insult and whether you are male or female using words that refer to male or female genitalia, you are being rude. Period. Gendered insults are equally rude. It’s not nice to insult people (even if they have done something mean or bad), and if you are at the point where you are hurling insults at another person, male or female, you are being unmannerly. It is a breach of etiquette. If there’s a spectrum of insults, gendered insults are probably on the boorish side (because of their association with sex), but there are lots of other insults there. If your skeptical community is a place where lots of people use lots of insults, it’s not very welcoming to anyone.

It is about the balance of power, and demeaning women.

Vulgarity and rudeness aside, there is a special barb to female gendered insults (directed at men or women) that perpetrates a culture of hostility to women, for reasons that are historical and sociological, and very well entrenched. The political effect of female gendered insults is far greater than the political effect of male gendered insults, for two reasons:

1. Female gendered insults remind women that traditionally their role is to provide sex and offspring to males. They portray “woman” and “vagina” as interchangeable, and the global culture right now is one with high sexual objectification of women and very low political agency of women. Calling a woman a “cunt” or “twat” or “bitch” reduces her to the parts of her body that men have found useful throughout the millennia. Calling a woman a “vagina” may be more scientific or polite, but it accomplishes the same thing. Calling a man by these terms is an insult to women because it acknowledges the power differential; it insults him by putting him in the lower class and insults women by labeling them the lower class.

2. Male gendered insults do not carry any of the historic and political baggage that female gendered insults do. (Pulling something out of the air about goddess cultures or some historical matriarchy is not going to be a very good argument about the state of the world then and now, so save your breath.) Furthermore, “male” is “normal.” Male is the default assumption for just about everything, and so a male gendered insult is no worse than a non-gendered insult like “asshole” or “bag of hammers.” No one is insulted by being lumped in with the ruling class (versus the breeding class). Sure, references to male genitalia fall under the “rude” and “vulgar” categories, but that’s just because they are associated with sex and sex is bad. You want to know why sex is bad? It’s women’s fault. It’s their lust that has to be contained, and their offspring that needs to be controlled.

If all the skeptical community did was stop employing female gendered insults, it would make the environment more welcoming to women because it would stop emphasizing that women occupy a lower social position to men in the grand scheme of things. If the skeptical community wants to also attract people–any people–who are deterred by vulgarity and rudeness from joining groups, then it would benefit from dropping gendered insults altogether. It all depends on what message they are trying to send to what group, and that’s a marketing thing that probably equals common sense, and nobody likely needs reminding of that. I don’t know how many people in the world are put off by vulgarity or rudeness anymore. But female gendered insults? Very off-putting. Real problem.

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24 Responses

I’m completely on board. Gendered insults should not and can not be tolerated. I think what speaks volumes that the very worst of the all the bad words is cunt–so the very worst thing you could be is a vagina. Sexism strikes again.

calling a person male or female genitals or saying they are genital hygiene products . calling a person fecal matter or saying they are acting pissy. using graphic sexual terms to express disapproval. associating by way of figurative language naughty bits, unsexy bodily functions, or the act of fucking with a disliked person in a crude display of anger somehow makes perfect sense. anger is a dumb animal emotion and your attempt to enlighten it is funny to me.

however, I think the word bitch is not a good one. same for stupid whore. its dismissive. so dismissive. much like calling someone crazy. stamp out their voice, destroy their will, and give them the living death of being unworthy of having an opinion that matters.

[…] however, when a TwitterPal @FirstAndFourth called me out in a link to a blog post about gender neutral insults, I had to think about how I insult people, and what it means. The idea of the post was that we […]

People with this stance on gendered insults are simply exacerbating the situation. If you place more power and emphasis on what a word means, you are the one drawing attention to it being associated with a certain gender. Not only that, but some words have different meanings (e.g., “riding bitch” in a car), that have no gender meaning whatsoever.

You also are grasping at straws, while going much deeper into the meaning of these words than anyone who uses them even considers.

[…] not Live Journal. I’ve debated sexism in sport, the questionable feminism of Joss Whedon, gendered insults and swear words (try not using any for a week, it’s HARD.) and most recently That Snickers […]

Why is it that many women have absolutely no hesitation to use words like cock or dick on a regular basis, and in front of almost anyone, yet if someone uses the words cunt, pussy or tits many of those same women have a fit about it? That’s being incredibly hypocritical. There are men, myself included that are uncomfortable with people using the words cock or dick in reference to male genitalia. But many, many women do not hesitate to use those words in front of anyone of any age and anywhere in public. TV shows like Saturday Night Live will even use those words openly. But no-one can dare say cunt or pussy or even tits.

Men’s feelings are never taken into consideration, but TV does not dare embarrass or insult women. Is there a sitcom left on TV that does not use the word balls in reference to testicles? Imagine shows constantly saying clit. You won’t hear that because it would offend and embarrass women.

I could go on with many examples of such hypocrisy.

Women should not use slang words to describe male genitals if they can not equally use or hear slang words for female genitals!

[…] or language. It’s all too common that you hear insults or curses like that are feminine-gendered (Not sure what I mean by gendered insults? Click here). Well, cut that shit out. There are only about a hundred other words in the English language that […]

Seriously you’re a stupid bitch. Females call me asshole and dickhead to insult me. And yeah calling a guy a bitch or a pussy is an insult, so what, I’m guessing you just love getting called a man? No, a manly woman is pretty much not attractive to most people, and it would be pretty bruising to any chicks ego to get referred to as anything even remotely manly. We are two different genders, grow the fuck up. You want to just throw away everyone else’s freedom for your vision of supreme non-offensiveness but that is offensive to me and you are just being a bitch is what I’m trying to say, cunt.

So glad to see people with sense in the comments. Feminists like imagining women as strong capable people yet blame their personal interpretation of the meaning of words for all the ‘barriers’ against their success in the world. How hypocritical and insulting to womankind. I take offence. No actually I don’t because I don’t care what morons think.

Also, your interpretation of the ‘meaning’ of words has nothing to do with their actual meaning and therefore has basis in reality, and is ultimately irrelevant.

This is pretty interesting, since if I were called a cunt, I would really just think–“Yeah, so you noticed that I’m female, big DUH. You sound really stupid saying that–and out of control.” But call me a dickhead, and I’m just grossed out.

I like how it says that only female oriented insults that share a comparison to their genitalia are sexist. It is not sexist at all to say that only things that refer to females in a negative was is sexist and things that refer to males in a negative way are not. This is sarcasm. THIS WHOLE ARTICLE IS SEXIST!!! SEXISM AND RACISM WORK BOTH WAS AND BOTH DIRECTIONS ARE PREVALENT IN THE WORLD TODAY.